Time and Chance (3 page)

“I am sorry,” he said softly, “that I was not there . . .”

“So was I.” Eleanor’s hazel eyes had darkened. “It was dreadful, Harry. Once the fever took him, those fool doctors were useless. You know Will, he was never quiet, never still for a moment. And to see him lying in that bed, getting weaker and weaker . . . It was like watching a candle burn out, and there was nothing I could do.” Her mouth twisted. “Nothing!”

Henry’s throat constricted. His only defense against such pain was to push it away. “Do you want some wine?” She shook her head, but he went over to the table and poured a cupful from the flagon nonetheless. “I saw the baby. She looks like you.”

“No, she does not,” Eleanor said, so sharply that he swung away from the table, the wine sloshing over the rim of the cup. “I do not want to talk about the baby, Harry, not now. Tell me . . . did you weep for Will?”

“Of course I did!”

“Did anyone see you shed those tears?” When he frowned, she said, “No . . . I thought not.”

“What is this about, Eleanor? You blame me for not being there? Petra clearly does, but I expected better of you. Christ Jesus, woman, I was putting down a rebellion in Anjou, not roistering in the bawdy-houses of Paris!”

“I do not blame you for not being with me then, Harry. I blame you for not being with me now!”

“I damned near killed my horse getting here!”

“That is not enough, not nearly enough!”

“What do you want from me?”

“We could not bury our child together. But I thought that at least we could grieve for him together!”

“You dare to say I do not mourn our son?”

She did not flinch from his anger. “No, I know you do. But I need you to mourn with me.” She looked at him and then slowly shook her head. “You cannot do that, can you? You trust no one enough to let down your guard, not even me.”

“This serves for naught,” he said tautly. He was still holding the dripping wine cup and fought back an impulse to fling it against the wall. Setting it down, very deliberately, upon the table, he strode toward the door. He slid the bolt back, but then his fingers clenched on the latch. After a long moment, he turned reluctantly to face his wife.

“Do you truly want to quarrel with me, Eleanor?”

Her shoulders sagged. “No,” she said bleakly, “no, I do not . . .”

Coming back into the room, he stopped before her and held out his hand. Her eyes flicked to the jagged scar that tracked across his palm toward his thumb. “How did you do that?”

“I was hearing Mass when they brought me word of Will’s death. I put my fist through a stained-glass window.”

She ran her fingers lightly over the scar, and when he took her into his arms, she shuddered, then clung fast. “Come on, love,” he said, “let’s go to bed.”

She nodded, letting him lead her toward the bed. Kicking off her shoes, she started to remove her stockings, then gave him an oblique glance through her lashes. “Do you want to help?”

His surprise was obvious. “It is not too soon?”

“Maude was born on the second Wednesday after Whitsun, and today is the twenty-third. That makes six weeks by my count.”

“Two days short,” Henry said; he’d always been good at math.

Eleanor lay back against the pillows. “Would you rather wait?”

“I’ve never been one for waiting,” he said and kissed her, softly at first, until her arms went up around his neck. When he spoke again, his voice was husky and he sounded out of breath. “You were wrong about my not trusting anyone. I may be wary of the rest of mankind, but I do trust you, my mother, and Thomas Becket.”

Eleanor’s eyes shone in the firelight, golden and catlike. “Not necessarily in that order,” she murmured, and after that, they had no further need of words, finding in their lovemaking a familiar pleasure and even a small measure of solace.

CHAPTER TWO

 

 

 

 

 

ADAME, WAIT!” The hospitaller hurried along the cloister walkway, hoping to intercept the queen before she reached her destination: the abbey chapter house. He did not have high expectations of success, but he had to try. A woman—even a highborn one—could not be allowed to wander at will in this hallowed sanctum of holy men. He was taken aback when Eleanor stopped abruptly, then swung around to face him.

“You wish to speak with me, Brother Clement?”

“Indeed, Madame, I . . . I wanted to show you our herb gardens.”

“That is kind of you, but I’ve already seen them.”

He could think of no other pretext, could only blurt out the truth. “My lady, forgive me for speaking so boldly, but you do not want to enter the chapter house just now. The lord king and our abbot and Archbishop Theobald are discussing a Church matter and . . . and so lovely a lady would be bound to be a distraction.”

His patronizing attempt at gallantry had Eleanor’s ladies, Barbe and Melisent, avoiding each other’s gaze lest they burst out laughing. No monk in Aquitaine would have dared to presume so, but this English monk clearly knew little of his young king’s consort. Grateful that they were to be present at his epiphany, they smiled at him with malicious mischief that he, in his innocence, took for coquetry.

His sudden blush made him look so young and vulnerable that Eleanor felt a glimmer of pity and chose not to prolong his ordeal. “Your ‘Church matter’ is, in actuality, a trial, Brother Clement. When the Bishop of Chichester sought to exercise jurisdiction over the abbey at Battle, the abbot balked, contending that the abbey was exempted from episcopal authority by royal charter. Eventually this dispute came before my lord husband, the king, and we expect the issue to be resolved today.”

The hospitaller was staring at her, mouth agape, and she wasted no more time in driving the stiletto home. “Now you may escort me to the chapter house,” she said in a tone that he recognized at once, for all that it was sheathed in silk: the voice of authority, absolute and indisputable.

Eleanor’s entrance put a temporary halt to the proceedings. The chamber was studded with stars of the Church: the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of Chichester, Hereford, and Winchester. Eleanor harbored genuine respect only for the venerable Theobald of Canterbury. York and Chichester she considered to be self-seekers, men whose ambitions were thoroughly secular in nature. She did not know Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford, well enough to assess, and the aged Bishop of Winchester she utterly mistrusted, for he was the brother of the usurping Stephen, damned both by blood and history.

Henry was seated in a high-backed chair, more formally attired than usual for this was Whitsuntide, one of the rare times when he wore his crown. He was flanked by lords of his court: his brother Will; his uncle Rainald, Earl of Cornwall; the Earls of Leicester and Salisbury; his justiciar, Richard de Lucy; and his chancellor, Thomas Becket. Sitting nearby was the other litigant, Walter de Lucy, who was both brother to Henry’s justiciar and abbot of St Martin’s at Battle, the abbey under episcopal siege. The abbot was looking so complacent that Eleanor assumed the tide must be going his way.

The churchmen were regarding her with poorly disguised disapproval. They were far more worldly than the abbey’s hapless hospitaller, though, and none raised any objections to her presence, however unseemly they considered it. As she glanced toward Thomas Becket, Eleanor thought she detected the faintest shadow of disfavor, but if so, it was swiftly gone. Coming toward her with the grave courtliness that was his hallmark, he escorted her to a front-row seat, and she conceded that his manners were impeccable even if he did come from the merchant class. He found a cushion for her bench, which she graciously accepted; she was in her fifth month of another pregnancy and inclined to take what comforts she could get. She looked over then at Henry, curious to see how he was responding to her intrusion. She doubted that he’d be troubled by her trampling upon tradition, and he justified her confidence; as their eyes met, a corner of his mouth curved slightly and he winked.

Abbot Walter had royal charters from the last three kings; if he had one from Stephen, too, he was wise enough not to mention it. Becket was passing them to the king for Henry’s inspection. As he did, the justiciar continued the argument Eleanor had interrupted: that the wishes of the abbey’s founder, King William of blessed memory, ought to be honored, and his wishes were clearly set forth in the charter.

Eleanor was not surprised to see the bishops frowning at that; even Theobald, a man so good-hearted that some saw him as saintly, was jealous of the Church’s prerogatives, ever vigilant for Crown encroachment into clerical domains. Emboldened by the support of his fellow prelates, the Bishop of Chichester launched a counterattack, insisting that to exempt the abbey from episcopal jurisdiction was to violate canon law.

“The ‘wishes’ of King William, may God assoil him, are therefore not relevant, much less dispositive. I daresay he did want to exempt his abbey, as contended by Abbot Walter’s brother, the justiciar.” Chichester paused, then, to make sure that none in the room missed his unspoken accusation: that the abbot was trading upon his connections with one of the king’s chief officers. “But not even a king’s wishes can always prevail. Would a king be able to amend canon law to meet his own needs? No more than he could depose one of his bishops!”

Henry leaned over to murmur something to Thomas Becket, too softly for other ears to hear. Becket grinned, and Henry then turned his gaze upon Chichester. “Very true,” he agreed amiably, “a bishop cannot be deposed. But he can be driven out.” He demonstrated by pantomiming a shove, and the chamber erupted into the indulgent laughter that a king’s humor could inevitably evoke, no matter how lame the sally.

Chichester was not about to be sidetracked by a jest he found dubious at best. “The spiritual power of the Holy Mother Church must not be diminished or debased by temporal authority. No layman, not even a king, can confer ecclesiastical liberties or exemptions without the consent of the Pope. Therefore, since the original act of King William in granting a charter was
ultra vires,
it must stand that the exemption, too, was invalid.”

Henry leaned back in his seat, studying the bishop through suddenly narrowed eyes. “This is a strange thing I am hearing, that the charters of past kings, charters confirmed by the full authority of the Crown of England, should be pronounced worthless and arbitrary by you, my lord bishop.”

He’d spoken so quietly that Chichester did not at once realize how badly he’d blundered. “I am not saying they are worthless, my liege, merely that they are immaterial in this particular case. St Peter conferred his power solely upon—”

“What you seem to be saying, my lord bishop, is that the Crown must always defer to the Church. Have you forgotten that a king exercises his authority by God’s Will?”

Chichester flushed darkly. “It was never my intent to offend your royal honor or dignity, my lord.”

“But you did offend, my lord bishop,” Becket pointed out coolly. “You knew that the royal charters supported Abbot Walter’s claim to exemption. You knew, too, that if the charters were accepted as valid, you would lose your case. And so you sought to circumvent the king’s authority by soliciting a papal bull. Instead of trusting to the judgment of the king, whose liegeman you are, you secured from the Holy Father a letter warning Abbot Walter to submit to your authority, upon pain of excommunication.”

Hilary of Chichester was a man both clever and learned. But he lacked the fortitude to stand fast in the face of Henry’s anger, fearing the loss of his king’s favor far more than he did the loss of his claim against Battle Abbey. He realized that Becket had succeeded in putting his papal appeal in the worst possible light, implying that he’d been both underhanded and disloyal, and he panicked. “That is not true! I did nothing of the sort!”

Becket blinked, as if surprised. “You deny that you appealed to Pope Adrian? How, then, do you explain this?” Holding up a parchment roll that seemed to have materialized in his hand as if by magic. “I have here the very letter that His Holiness wrote to Abbot Walter, at your behest!”

It had been so adroitly done that Eleanor, watching with a cynical smile, wondered if it had been rehearsed. She had rather enjoyed seeing Chichester so thoroughly discomfited. Even his fellow bishops were recoiling, Theobald because he was truly offended by perjury and Winchester because he deplored ineptitude. She did regret, though, that Thomas Becket had been the instrument of Chichester’s downfall, for she felt he was already too well entrenched in her husband’s favor. Eleanor was astute enough to recognize a potential rival in whatever the guise.

 

 

 

THE TRIAL WAS OVER. There had been no need to declare a verdict. Theobald had passed judgment with his sorrowful observation that the Bishop of Chichester’s words had been “ill advised and derogatory to the king’s royal dignity.” Faced with the need to appease both his archbishop and his sovereign, Chichester renounced any and all claims to authority over Battle Abbey, and he and Abbot Walter solemnly exchanged a ceremonial Kiss of Peace. Henry was usually a gracious winner, an unexpected virtue in a son of the Empress Maude and Count Geoffrey of Anjou, and all had been concluded with civility, at least on the surface.